SBAC Opt Out Articles

It’s true that, in signing the bill that repealed the standards, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, said it was “a possibility” that the state could be jeopardizing federal funds.

But, now that the law has been changed for a couple weeks, Oklahoma isn’t particularly worried about the loss of funding—and Oklahomans say the Obama administration never actually “threatened” the state, as Jindal contends.

“Oklahoma has not been threatened with the loss of federal funds for the repeal of common core. We don’t see that as a possibility, really,” said Phil Bacharach, the executive director of communications for the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

When I worked in the U.S. Department of Education in the early 1990s, I was frequently reminded by colleagues and counsel that the Department was forbidden by law from interfering into what was taught in the schools. When the Department made grants to professional groups of teachers and scholars to create “voluntary national standards,” I made a point of never interfering in their work. I extolled the value of having standards that states, districts, and schools might find useful but made clear that the decision to use or not to use the standards was strictly voluntary. There was no thought that the Department could advocate for the standards or use money to bribe states to adopt them. That would have been illegal.